


Sweet as Springtime

by JazzRaft



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Ficlet Collection, Fluff, Food Porn, M/M, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-25
Updated: 2019-03-25
Packaged: 2019-12-07 18:17:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18238523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: As the seasons change, so too do the sweets. Spring brings with it sunshine, shortcakes, and some kisses to boot.Three ships, three sweets, and three places to share.





	1. ravus/noctis: lemon mousse

**Author's Note:**

> Monthly food fluff challenge with [Aithilin!](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aithilin)

Spring fever had infected Noctis like the plague.

He bounced around the kitchen as if in a delirium, goring lemons with an almost cannibalistic glee. Smiles burst from his cheeks like big, boiling bubbles, popping with laughter every time he caught Ravus staring. Every time he did, Ravus felt something warm creep up the back of his neck. The Prince must have been contagious, spreading the virus with his smile alone, because Ravus was feeling more and more feverish the longer he lingered.

“Remind me again why you’ve insisted upon mangling the royal citrus reserve in such a manner,” Ravus said, watching the Prince’s epidemic devastate Fenestala’s prestigious kitchen.

“It’s the first day of spring,” Noctis told him, as if Ravus really needed reminding – it wasn’t like he didn’t own a calendar. “And you’re the one who ‘generously opened your home to the Lucian ambassador.’”

“I fail to see how the two correlate.”

“You will,” Noctis promised, smiling at him – he might as well have sneezed on him; Ravus felt himself burning up again. “Think of it as an olive branch… Or, y’know, a lemon branch.”

Noctis was more animated than usual, more comfortable within the constraints of Ravus’s domain than he preferred him to be. This was far from his first visit to Tenebrae, though it was the first time he’d been around to enjoy the kingdom’s unique transition from winter to spring.

The lush woodlands of Tenebrae were burgeoning with the pale green blooms of springtime shoots, virgin grasses and infant leaves shyly peering out from the dormant soil. Color was slowly breathing across the land again, as if coaxed from beneath the brush of a watercolor painter. Usually, Ravus didn’t take much notice in the change, too embroiled in whatever Imperial politics needed juggling to keep his own kingdom safe.

But this year, something was different. He _felt_ the colors, smelled the sweetness of spring sneaking in through the open windows. Oftentimes, he caught himself committing more attention to the dogwoods blooming outside his room than the reports on his desk.

The fact that his newfound distractions seemed to correlate with Noct’s arrival, didn’t pass beneath Ravus’s notice.

“Are the gardens in bloom yet?”

“I believe so,” Ravus said, carefully, as he scrutinized the crafty confections Noctis had finished preparing.

Hollowed out lemons served as the dish, filled to the top with a swirl of light yellow mousse, dotted with flecks of lemon zest and vanilla bean. Noctis had managed to spear the sliced off lemon end with a mint leaf, setting it on top of the mousse to make it look like a thief’s cap. The kitchen smelled of subtle citrus and sugar, fresh and clean as the pale golden beams of sunlight filtering in through the windows.

Noctis handed Ravus one of the lemons like a glass of wine, smiling that infectious smile of his. “Lead the way,” he said, and before Ravus had even bid his feet to move, he was taking the Prince to the sylleblossom gardens.

Blue buds rolled down the hill like a waterfall, the carefully cultivated blossoms drifting gently in the breeze. Ravus sat in the field every spring, as accustomed to the indigo petals as he was to filing cabinets and coffee cups in his office. But as Noctis set down on the stairs spilling into the garden, Ravus felt an odd unfamiliarity with the place.

It was as if he’d been away for many years, having never seen the blooms since the fairytale days of his youth. They were somehow new to him, in that nostalgic shade of knowing something so well from memory, but returning to find it wholly changed.

“C’mon,” Noctis beckoned, shifting on the stair to make room. “You’ve got to tell me if my culinary cultural exchange is up to your standards.”

“You risk an act of war by not entrusting a professional with it,” Ravus warned him.

“That’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

Ravus _thought_ the brazen prince might have _winked_ at him. Another symptom of his springtime hysteria, no doubt. Ravus should have heeded the lemon offering with more caution, lest he contract the disease himself, but he knew there was no point. He’d been with Noctis long enough to be inoculated. And if he wasn’t, well, at least they could share the same sickbed together.


	2. ignis/noctis: honey crepe cake

“You’ve been busy.”

Ignis popped his head up from above the delicate layers of crepes and cream, squinting at Noctis over the brim of his glasses. “Ah. Yes. It does look that way, doesn’t it?”

He supposed he could forgive himself the mess just this once. Chaos had a tendency to pave the way towards cleanliness in the past. There was a deeper satisfaction to tidying up a bigger mess than a smaller one, gradually reintroducing order to a lawless cabinet of askew pots and half-full spice jars and whatever other niche ingredients went unused after a single, specific recipe called for it, only to never find another one to call upon it again.

“I didn’t realize spring cleaning entailed a treat,” Noctis said, presently, leaning his elbows against the very edge of the counter – the only strip of space left empty for him to lean on. “Otherwise I might have volunteered to help.”

“There were some ingredients left over that I wanted to use up,” Ignis explained. “The flour, in particular, was getting old.”

“I didn’t know flour could get old,” Noctis chuckled.

While it was true enough that flour could be used well past its “best by” date, Ignis didn’t like to tempt fate when it came to food. Especially not when most of his kitchen endeavors entailed the health and safety of the Lucian prince. Though, if he was being honest with himself, Ignis really just wanted to excuse to go on a restocking shopping spree.

“Anything I can help with?” Noctis asked. “I know you like to do things a certain way.”

“It helps to have a charming audience, if you think you can manage it.”

“I’ll try, Specs. Being this charming takes a lot of effort, you know.”

“And yet, you make it seem so effortless.”

Ignis smiled, catching the pink blush on Noct’s cheeks from the corner of his eye as he worked. He’d been eager to clean out the kitchen since spring had settled over Lucis, banishing the last, slushy drifts of snow from the sidewalks in favor of cherry blossom petals and open-toed shoes. Walking through the park with the sun on his arms had inspired thoughts of iced tea and honey cakes with Noct, lounging on the balcony and soaking up the warmth to chase winter’s chill from both their bones.

He hadn’t thought he was going to go this in depth with that idea though. Crepes were hardly the low maintenance clean-out he was aiming for. But the paper-thin layers served their purpose, stacking onto sweet, honey-infused cream to create a thin tower of fragrant, floral confection. It was slow and delicate work, but it would be worth it for the fragile, melt-in-your-mouth texture, light and dainty to celebrate the coming of spring.

He finished the crepe cake with a drizzle of honey – fresh, this one, bought from the first shop he saw between his walks to work. The grocers of Insomnia were eager for fresh produce and stock to sell their consumers, just as eager as Ignis was to fill his pantry with new spring flavors.

“Care to join me outside?” Ignis asked when he was done.

“Without cleaning up first? You feeling alright, Specs? Usually you’re work first, treat later.”

“You and I both know the second I’m distracted with clean-up, you’ll sneak a taste of this cake.”

“You get me, Specs. You really do.”

They sat on the balcony over-looking the city, thin layers of sweetened cream and crepe laid neatly on cake plates, washed down with tea. The crepes were as golden as the new sunlight returning to the streets through the Wall, incandescent against the glass and steel skyscrapers racing up around them. Over the smell of gasoline and asphalt, the damp scent of the grasses from far beyond the city limits snuck inside with visions of newborn livestock and freshly shorn hay.

“This is from Duscae, right?” Noctis asked, inspecting the honey jar. “Wonder how they manage it, with everything going on out there.”

“The same way we manage, I imagine,” Ignis teased, lightly swiping at Noct’s lip, where a smear of honeyed cream lay untended. “Whatever strife plagues the world, people are bound to make something sweet out of it.”

“Since when are you such a poet?”

“Since I have such a lovely muse.”

Noctis bit down another forkful of cake, ducking his head to the sweet spring breeze. “Shut up, Specs.”


	3. nyx/noctis: fruit kebabs

“If it can fit on a stick, you bet we have a recipe for that.”

Sometimes it was hard to tell if Nyx was joking or not. Some of what he said about his Galahdian heritage sounded so over-the-top that it had to have been exaggerated. But then Nyx would take him out to his homeland, and Noctis would see for himself that everything about Galahd met his exaggerated expectations.

For instance, yes, if it fit on a stick, Galahdians had a recipe for it. They were a people that were always active, always out in the verdant wilds or cerulean seas. They needed mobile food once spring thawed the seas and the footpaths were clear for safe travel to the markets. Stands and stalls were set up at every intersections, at the base of every dock, just inside the gate of every little village. Noctis was reminded of carnivals out in Leide, hawking cotton candy and corn dogs for tourists to pay more than they needed for something to eat.

Here, the food was more than spun sugar and fried in oil. Flavor rose up all around him as he stuck himself to Nyx’s side so as not to get lost in the crowd. Different meats lathered in thick, spicy sauces were speared on skewers, roasting vegetables were lined up on smoking sticks, and confections that Noctis would have never imagined as hand-held snacks to take along a walk were exchanged for humble prices all around him.

“Didn’t spring just start like a day ago?” Noctis asked, huddled close to Nyx’s ear so he could hear him over the din of the crowd. “Why does it look like this has all been here for months?”

“Spring comes earlier in Galahd than it does in the city,” Nyx explained. “They have been here for months. Lots of hungry Galahdians have been coming out of hibernation.”

Nyx tugged Noct by the link of their arms to a ramshackle stall tucked closer to the sea, hidden under the shade of the palm trees rising over the boardwalk. The sunburnt man behind the counter smiled as if he recognized Nyx, exchanging orders in thick Galahdian.

Noctis cast his gaze beyond the shack to the grainy sands of the beach below. He was amazed by how clean it all looked, how quickly the islanders rushed from their seasonally imposed exile to clean up the beaches from winter’s rampage. The beaches were raked clean of bracken and debris, the trees thick with green, drooping leaves where they framed the cove. Bright yellow trumpets of flowers gleamed brilliantly from the shadows, like a net of suns caught in the jungle.

Before he’d even absorbed all there was to see of the springtime scenery, Nyx had two sticks of their order in his hands and he was tugging them both onto the beach. “Where it’s quieter,” he said over the chipper voices echoing around the boardwalk. “You’ll enjoy it more.”

He’d ordered them kebabs of fruit salad, arranged in all the colors of the rainbow along one sweet stick – which Nyx helpfully informed him was edible, too. Tart strawberries, smooth mangos, candied lemon wedges, kiwis and blueberries, and little purple fruit cut into stars that Noctis had never seen before were pierced along the thick stick of glass-like sugar, all drenched in a lavender-honey syrup that stuck to his fingertips.

“Could you make this if you wanted to?” Noctis asked once they were farther along the beach, plucking the strawberry off the top of the skewer with his teeth.

“If I wanted to. But it’s always better when someone else makes it.”

The water was still cold with the last remnants of winter’s melted ice in the seafoam as they walked along its edge, the spray speckling their ankles as the waves crashed against the shore. The sun was as hot as a summer’s day though, blasting across the islands as eagerly as its inhabitants were to get back outside into the fresh, sultry air.

With treats like these ready to be offered, Noctis couldn’t blame them. “This is probably the healthiest dessert I’ve ever had,” he said around a mouthful of star-shaped fruit. “I should feel so much more betrayed than I do.”

“Don’t worry,” Nyx chuckled. “I won’t tell Iggy our sacred, secret island recipes. This stays between you and me.”

“Promise?”

Nyx squeezed his hand, tugging Noctis in for a sticky, sugary kiss to seal it. “Promise.”


End file.
